Katavasov talks to the Volunteers

The train is met at Tsaritsyno by a choir singing Slavsya. Koznyshev, long familiar with the type, ignores the Volunteers; Katavasov moves to the second-class carriage to meet them. The tall hollow-chested young man, drunk and bragging about school, turns out to be a Moscow merchant who ran through a large fortune before he was twenty-two — effeminate, spoilt, certain he is performing a heroic deed. A retired officer who has tried the railway, stewardship and factories talks needlessly in inappropriate technical terms. Katavasov likes the third, a quiet artilleryman who says only that everybody is going, one must help the Serbs, and who admits under questioning that he is a retired Cadet who never passed for a commission. Wanting to test his impression, Katavasov sounds out an old soldier of two campaigns, who privately judges them bad soldiers and thinks of a drunkard from his town who volunteered — but, knowing it dangerous to censure Volunteers, says only that men are wanted there. Neither states an opinion. Katavasov returns and prevaricates, letting Koznyshev think them excellent fellows. At the next big town the songs and collecting-boxes are feebler than in Moscow.

Tolstoy dismantles the 'soul of the nation' by walking one sceptic down the carriage and counting who is actually going. The chapter's real subject is the silence: two men who both think the same thing conceal it from each other, and Katavasov then lies to Koznyshev. Public opinion is shown being manufactured out of what nobody dares say.